the state senator?”
“Heh, heh, heh.” Morty chuckled.
Falcone’s eyebrows shot up. Ritter laughed.
“But I talked to the first Mrs. Artie. She said he liked the lights off. Sure lots of guys change with a new woman, but then there was the ‘you and I’ from a former English teacher.”
“I don’t understand,” Falcone said.
Morty grinned.
“The suicide note said, ‘Once the gift of love belonged to you and I.’ Bunny was an English teacher. She never would have written ‘the gift of love belonged to you and I.’ It should have read, ‘the gift of love belonged to you and me.’ When I heard it on TV, I figured it was the reporter making a mistake. Then I read the text of the suicide note in the paper. The pronoun should have been in the objective case.”
Morty raised his can of soda in tribute. “Smart girl.”
“So you two cooked up this sting based on some shoes and two little words.” Falcone smiled.
“Freakin’ awesome,” Ritter said. His cell buzzed. Ritter glanced at the screen. “We gotta go.”
“Morty.” The detectives shook hands with Morty, then Serena, with Falcone’s hand lingering a second too long.
“Serena, I’ll have to give you a rain check on that coke.” Falcone grinned and walked up the path.
Morty and Serena tossed their trash. “You know, Morty, they didn’t even need that flowery suicide note. They should have kept it simple.”
“There isn’t too much simpler than greed, kid.”
Serena watched the detectives. Falcone threw not one but two glances back her way.
Or men, she thought.
Shari Randall works in children’s services in a public library. She lives in Virginia with a wonderful husband and has occasional visits from two globe-trotting children. She enjoys dance from ballet to ballroom, antiques, and mystery fiction.
ALLIGATOR IS FOR SHOES, by C. Ellett Logan
People’ll knock off anything. That’s what I was thinking as I waited on the porch of the big, obviously faux country house, not in a rural area at all, but behind tall brick fencing and ferocious iron gates in a suburb of Atlanta. Before I could bang the bronze armadillo-shaped knocker, a rangy man with skin as wrinkled as alligator hide appeared in shorts that seemed to billow without a breeze, black socks, and those rubber shoes they stick you in at the spa.
“Um…I’m Nonni Pennington?” Not used to sounding professional, since this was my first job (unless you count marrying up), the end of my statement came out like a question—an affectation I thought I’d shed after high school ten years ago. I cleared my throat and continued, “Mr. Shelbee is expecting me.” Mr. Shelbee was Chef Clyde, the Citchen Critter’s star, who’d become famous cooking unusual dishes featuring game or farmed exotic animals.
“That’s right,” the man said and turned back inside. I followed.
After a few paces in his wake I yelped, “What is that?”
“That would be simmering fish heads,” he replied. “For stock.”
I wasn’t talking about the smell, only, God knows, it was awful. Frozen in mid-flight on top of an armoire in the foyer loomed a stuffed bird with its splayed talons pointing at my head.
My guide, unmoved, continued across the dining room as I scurried to keep up.
A voice from the next room called out, “Emmett, why are you hollering?”
The back of Emmett’s bony hand stopped me beneath the archway to the kitchen, its frame gleaming with intricate wood carvings of fruit and fowl.
“Chef, that P.I. my daughter hired for us is here,” Emmett said. “Should we come in?”
We must have gotten the nod, because in tandem we entered the kitchen. I noticed a red brick floor and a cozy fire in an eye-level hearth directly across the room, right below a stuffed ’possum on a shelf, its tail artfully draped.
An elfish man wearing bike shorts and no shirt stood on a stool in front of the longest counter I’d ever seen. The chef was done up in an apron that only partially covered his bare chest. The Citchen Critter logo was printed across its bib.
“I’m put out that Ms. Turnbow is not here in person,” the chef said to the ceiling as if in prayer for divine patience. Then he turned to me. “My culinary assistant, Pilar Heinz, is missing.” He punctuated each syllable by stabbing the air with a fat knife. “Less than one week before the Gastronomic Gambles championship. I need you to find her. Now!”
“My employer has sent me to do the initial interview,” I stammered, “since, as she informed you, she’s at a sensitive point in another investigation. If we get the basic details of your case to her right away, we can begin the background checks.” I liked the term background checks. Sounded so detective-speak.
Loris Turnbow, my aunt, had been kind enough to give me a job with her P.I. firm after my husband embezzled his company’s largest fund, then fled the country. She served as my training officer, helping me meet the minimum requirements set by the state board to get my license. It was no secret that she hoped I’d make this temporary solution to my cash-flow problems permanent. She apparently thought I had promise.
“Doesn’t she look like Pilar?” the chef asked as Emmett handed me a photo of the missing person.
“I declare, she does.”
“Ask your questions, girl,” the chef commanded.
Even though he had to stand on a stool to be eye-level with me, I fought the urge to run. To cover my nervousness, I dug in my Fendi bag for paper and a pen to take notes.
I dropped that pen when I noticed a dozen bird feet, toes up, on the countertop in front of Chef Clyde. The medieval-looking contraption hanging over us, where pots and unfamiliar implements of all shapes and sizes dangled, didn’t help.
Thankfully, a sign above the stove, “No Road Kill Used in the Preparation of This Dish!” made me laugh and regain my composure. I picked up my pen and forged ahead with my questions, determined to do the job right.
Before I’d left the office, my aunt had explained that this was a bad time for her to take a new case because of an issue with an employee. Since only her son and I worked for the agency, I took that to mean my cousin had stepped in it. Again. That left me. She explained that Emmett’s daughter, a client several years ago, had called in a favor. Sending me to do the light lifting would jump-start Chef Grumpy’s case.
Emmett ferried a covered dish from the refrigerator to the counter. “I have a plan, Chef, to find Pilar. Young lady,” he said turning my way. “I think my idea will assist you as well.”
“What idea?” My aunt hadn’t said anything about the clients having ideas involving me.
“It will be far more difficult to find our culinary assistant than you imagine,” Emmett said. “Winning
